1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a conveyor drum for articles of the tobacco processing industry with a lifting device for changing the longitudinal axial spacing of articles aligned with one another in a longitudinal axial manner and conveyed in at least one row to the conveyor drum in a crosswise axial manner by a predetermined longitudinal axial lift. Furthermore, the invention relates to a machine of the tobacco processing industry.
In the present context, articles of the tobacco processing industry means those objects that are held on conveyors in a single-layer or multi-layer row by vacuum intake air, as, e.g., on conveyor drums in filter or cigarette manufacturing machines and conveyed by the same. Such articles are filter cigarettes, cigars, cigarillos and filter plugs, filter segments, etc. When for the sake of simplicity reference is made below merely to cigarettes or filters, these terms also apply analogously to other articles of the above-mentioned type to be conveyed, e.g., filter segments.
2. Discussion of Background Information
In cigarette machines, cigarettes are kept on conveyor drums crosswise to their longitudinal axial alignment by vacuum intake air. These drums are primarily drums of cigarette manufacturing machines or of filter tipping machines. Cigarettes can be arranged on the conveyor drum next to one another in two essentially parallel rows and moved on the conveyor drum at right angles with respect to the cigarette axes. In order, e.g., to insert a double filter between two cigarettes aligned axially to one another, cut double-length tobacco rods are spread on the conveyor drum in a longitudinal axial manner and a double-length filter plug is inserted.
During the spreading of the cut tobacco rods on the conveyor drum, the cut tobacco rods are subjected to a predetermined lift, so that the cut tobacco rods are spaced in a longitudinal axial manner.
Moreover, sliding drums are known in which filter plugs arranged in parallel rows, displaced relative to one another are pushed together on the sliding drum to form one row of filter plugs arranged one behind the other.
With the known spreading drums and sliding drums, the articles on these conveyor drums are subjected to a predetermined longitudinal axial lift. Due to the construction of the conveyor drums, the lift or the longitudinal axial displacement is fixed. For example, DE-A-41 34 663 describes a device for the axial displacement of a row of cigarettes relative to a parallel row of cigarettes passing through. The seats for the row of cigarettes to be displaced are arranged at the ends of cranked crank arms that are supported in a parallel disk drive. The axes of the parallel disk drive are inclined relative to axes of a drum conveying a row of cigarettes passing through.